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LETTER 



FROM 



GEORGE R. RUSSELL 



TO THE MASS MEETING AT PROVIDENCE, R. I., 



SEPT. 10, 1856. 



BOSTON: 
DAMRELL & MOORE, 

16 DEVONSHIBE STREET. 



k433 



LETTER. 

Jamaica Plain, Sept. 5, 1856. 
Wm. M. Chace, Esq. 

Dear Sir — As I cannot be present at the Fremont Mass Meeting, 
to be held at Providence, on the 10th inst., I take the Uberty to 
answer the invitation you have kindly extended to me, by offering a 
few remarks applicable to the times. 

Never since our political existence has the nation been called 
upon to decide so momentous an election as the one approaching. 
The question before us is whether patriotism and honesty shall re- 
deem the national character from the infamy with which it is covered 
by the profligacy, bad faith, and utter recklessness of the last few 
years — whether we shall stand forth an example to the world of a 
free and enlightened people, governed by equal laws and impartial 
rulers, to whom the oppressed of all lands turn for consolation and 
hope ; or shall become a scorn to the nations, and our daily history 
be quoted by despotism, that its subjects may become disgusted at 
the contrast between our professions and our practice. 

The slave oligarchy, which rules us with iron sway, brands the 
whole country with its infamous character. Every lawless aggres- 
sion comes back to us. The blood-stained soil of Kansas, the smok- 
ing ruins of homes made desolate, the murdered bodies of our breth- 
ren insulted even after death, the threatened subjection, uttered by 
one ruffian on the floor of the Senate Chamber, and carried out by 
his fellow ruffians of Georgia, South Carolina, and Missouri, the 
sneaking, cowardly assault on a Free State Senator, plotted, encour- 
aged, and approved by those who would resort to assassination when 
they cannot refute argument, and who become partakers of the 
brutal villainy by sanctioning it, the street and bar-room broils, com- 
mencing in drunkenness and ending in murder, all emanate from the 
same source, and all combine to fasten upon the whole land a decrra- 
dation of which we are joint participators. 

We have gradually been brought to a condition which may well 
alarm those who care for the honor and welfare of the country. 



Slavery has become paramount, and all other questions are forgotten 
or neglected, unless they can be made subservient to the advance- 
ment of a grasping and arrogant power, which allows no considera- 
tion of justice or good faith to interrupt its unhallowed course. 
There would seem to be no policy but Southern policy, no interests 
but Southern interests. Every right of the North is disregarded, 
and her citizens call in vain for redress. Their just claims °are re- 
jected, and their remonstrances answered by derision and insult. 
The differences of North and South, fostered and encouraged by the 
National Administration, are growing to fearful magnitude fand if the 
present one-sided policy of the government is not overthrown at the 
next election, and slavery confined within prescribed bounds, four 
years hence will find us in a position that will preclude any amicable 
adjustment. We have borne and borne until we can bear' no longer. 
The voracity of the slave power is forever crying, " not enougli." 
There is no end to its appetite, and we must be resigned tolink 
hopelessly beneath its feet, or rise up and crush it under our own. 
There is no middle course. We must either conquer or be con- 
quered. It is no time now to talk of compromise. We have had 
too much of that unmeaning word — that sop to Cerberus, to amuse 
and keep him from barking until further steps can be made towards 
utter darkness. The day of wheedling compromises has gone by, I 
trust never to return. They have cheated us too often, and if we 
ever trust to them again we shall deserve to be the abject slaves our 
masters are trying to make us. It is in vain to cry " peace, peace, 
when there is no peace ;" to whine about conciliation and concession,' 
and by so doing give ourselves up, bound hand and foot, to a power 
that knows neither justice nor generosity. The Northern man who 
talks now of conciliation, is a traitor to the North, and is fitter for 
the swamps of Carolina than the free soil of New England. Such 
men are helpers of the iniquity which is bringing shame and ruin on 
the country, and by their servile sycophancy to the South, they en- 
courage an audacity whose fruits are civil war. They denounce as 
sectional the only party that advocates freedom, while they them- 
selves acknowledge no country North of the black line of slavery. 
The gloom which now hangs over the land is the work of Northern 
men, who are false to their birth-place, false to their former profes- 
sions and their present convictions, false to their own brethren, and 
the Christian faith in which they have been nurtured. 

It is but Httle satisfaction that the political graves of these false 
men have been dug by their own hands. Their public career has 



terminated, leaving a moral for the contemplation of future aspirants ; 
but, though they rest from their labors, thej bequeathe a mournful 
illustration that " the evil that men do, lives after them." 

Constitution and Union are preached to us by the South whenever 
we show any symptoms of restlessness, and we are whipped back^to 
obedience by those who are continually repudiating the one and 
threatening to break up the other. We have begun to suspect that 
some monstrous villainy is on foot, whenever the tocsin of disunion is 
sounded. The doleful death-kncll, though so often clanged, still 
falls alarmingly on the ear, and we look anxiously about us, not for 
the breaking up, but to sec what fraud is coming. If the Union is 
a scourge to drive us, or an opiate to lull us into forgetfulness of 
everthing manly ; if self-respect, individual rights, national honor, 
are to be sacrificed ; if we are to be wronged out of everything, and 
insulted for remonstrating ; if there is nothing left to us but the 
name of liberty, and wc are mere accomplices to an outrageous and 
fearfully increasing despotism, it is time to -weigh the value of a 
bargain, the advantages of which are all on one side. I know that 
it is customary at public meetings to fall back on the Union, and its 
boasted priceless benefits, to smother every cry of indignation by a 
holy horror of breaking the bonds which connect us with the Slave 
States. So long as this continues we shall be cheated and insulted, 
and our desperate attempts at Union-saving will, as usual, be treated 
with scorn and contempt. 

We get well kicked, and we submit with exemplary meekness, 
being positively assured that the last kick is a "finaUty;" but be- 
fore the pain subsides, there comes another and another, and the 
same assurance with each. A story is told of a Quaker, who, on 
receiving a blow on his face, turned the other cheek, to which a 
similar salute was applied. " Friend," says the man of peace, 
" Scriptural injunction being now satisfied, I will proceed to admin- 
ister to thee a little wholesome correction." We have turned so 
often that there is no part of us left untouched, and as we have 
gained nothing by our humility and forbearance, the Quaker's exam- 
ple is worth remembering. 

It has been well said that " the best way to preserve the Union 
is to make the Union worth preserving." If we direct our efforts 
to this end we shall be doing faithful service to the Union and to 
the country. One thing is quite certain. The slaveholders, in their 
continual threats of disunion, either mean what they say, and desire 



that result, or they use the menace as a convenient instrument to 
bring us back to their interests when they discover signs of bolting, 
and have no serious intention of separating from us. If they are 
sober, and really think they shall be better oif without us, no depre- 
cation on our part will stop them. We shall only bow and cringe 
and beg for nothing. If they only mean to frighten us, and have 
no intention of relinquishing the only thing that keeps life in them, 
they will be brought to their senses the moment they find that the old 
trick is discovered, and that disunion has ceased to be a bugbear to 
the North. There is probably a small minority at the South who 
sincerely wish to establish a separate empire, where the " peculiar 
institution " can have unrebuked sway ; and the poor, self deluded, 
God-forsaken wretches actually persuade themselves that they shall 
improve by the change. 

But the larger part see what disunion would be to them, and have 
no idea whatever of giving up an alliance that maintains and pro- 
tects them. They intend that we shall find men and monej for the 
aggressive wars they have in contemplation. They want us to fight 
their battles, pay their debts, supply them with every article of use 
or luxury, as we ever have done. They need us to feed them, to 
clothe them, and to instruct them ; to care for their physical wants, 
and to encourage any unwonted tendencies to the cultivation of in- 
tellect. Literature and teachers must come from the North, for 
who ever hears or reads of a Southern book, or of a Southern scholar, 
unless here and there a soUtary graduate from a Northern college ? 
Their state of semi-civilization has very limited demands for science 
or art, but to gratify these they must also turn towards the polar 
star. They look to us to defend them from foreign invasion, and to 
aid them in the hour of extremity from that more dangerous foe 
nestling at their door stones, of whom their harrowed souls call 
up visions filled with the groans of dying men, the shrieks of women 
and children, and a midnight sky reddened by conflagrations. In 
fact, they would be a body without head or limbs, a hand without 
fingers, a helpless, miserable lump of nothingness, and their bitterest 
enemies could wish them no worse fortune than to try the experi- 
ment. 

Some one has remarked that the Southern threat of separation is 
like the town's poor threatening to separate from the town. This is 
both true and comprehensive. There is nothing, not even a servile 
insurrection, that would cause such alarm in the slave camp as a 



serious disunion movement at the North. It would bring the think- 
ing back to their senses, and we should have conciliation and 
assurances of friendly feeling, instead of bluster and brutality. 

In either case, a familiarity Avith the once dreaded word disunion, 
a sober, calm consideration of its significance, will be useful. If 
the South intends to persevere in her reckless course, and make the 
North entirely subservient to her will ; if we are to have every 
session of Congress occupied only with the designs of the slave 
power, and the whole thought and authority of the Federal Govern- 
ment are to be concentrated on its extension and perpetuity ; in a 
word, if the Free States are merely tin kettles tied to the tail of the 
Slave Slates, it is worth considering whether we had better cut the 
string and let them run to destruction without us. 

The aim of slavery has ever been to obtain the balance of power, to 
control legislation, and to make the National Government auxiliary to 
its purpose. But it has, until lately, worked secretly, without avowing 
its intention. It has now thrown off all disguise, and unblushingly 
declares that it uill rule the country. Whether it shall do so rests, 
as yet, with the Free States. They have let power gradually slide 
from their hands, and have criminally left the destinies of this great 
country to Southern bullies and Northern renegades. If the Free 
States intend to assert their rights, to take the control of the coun- 
try, as they ought, to keep slavery within allotted limits, to make 
it entirely sectional, and to separate the government from any 
participation in it, to declare that the reign of the slave oligarchy is 
over forever, that the Union shall be a Union for freedom, that the 
Slave States shall remain in it, and do their duty to it, they 
will unitedly confirm and sustain the Philadelphia nominations. An 
entire change of policy can alone save the country. Two plat- 
forms are offered to the people, and the respective candidates are 
pledged to carry them out. One will secure freedom, equality, 
prosperity, and peace, while the other will assuredly rivet upon us 
the chains of slavery or the horrors of civil war. 

For the first time since we have ranked among the nations of the 
earth, an election is to take place based solely upon Freedom or Slav- 
ery. All minor questions are forgotten, and no difference of opinion 
exists, save on the great issue which engulfs all others. The 
mighty antagonisms which have been growing with our growth, until 
the black shadow of the one threatens to overspread with gloom all 
that is lovely in the other, are to meet face to face in actual con- 
flict. As they confront each other in hostile array, with banners 



whose symbols indicate their respective professions, the distinctive 
character of each is presented to us. On one side there are civiliza- 
tion, intelligence, cultivation, refinement, and virtue. On the other, 
barbarism, brutality, ignorance, vice, and crime. We must choose 

between them. 

Respectfully yours, 

G. R. RUSSELL. 




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Jan feb 1989 

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